One Night in Nos Astra
by Charlie Chatham
Summary: Commander Shepard ponders the past while the love interest comes to say goodbye.
1. One Night with Garrus

_Azure_, Nos Astra, Illium, A few days after the destruction of the Alpha Relay...

Shepard stared at the sunset. She marveled at how the sunlight flickered as long lines of air cars zoomed past. A multitude of workers, friends, family, people going about their business, some going home, others to a club, maybe even on their way to some far away destination across the galaxy. By now news of the destruction of the Bahak system spread through out the galaxy. The batarians were already blaming the Alliance, the Alliance was calling her back home and all the while the Reapers were closing in to exterminate all sentient life.

Three-hundred lives lost, no, sacrificed, by her hand, to buy the galaxy a few more months.

Three-hundred thousand yesterday to save a trillion tomorrow from a fate worse than death.

_Is submission not preferable to extinction?_

_We get our hands dirty so the Council doesn't have to!_

_Don't turn your back on me, Shepard! I made you, I brought you back from the dead!_

_Specters bear a great burden. They are protectors of galactic peace, both our first and last line of defense. The safety of the galaxy is theirs to uphold._

_You fight against inevitability, dust struggling against cosmic winds. This seems a victory to you, a star system sacrificed. But even now, your greatest civilizations are doomed to fall. Your leaders will beg to serve us._

"There you are," said Garrus. He leaned against the balcony railing. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine Garrus, just thinking," said Shepard.

He combed a long finger through her red hair, putting a few wayward strands back into place, "Just thinking?"

"Yes."

"What about?

"This and that," she said. Her stomach churned with emotions from her love of her favorite turian standing beside her to fear of the future. Above all else she feared that everything she ever did would be in vain. Failure hunted her every waking moment.

"I see, well I guess this is the perfect place for it. Gotta hand it to Liara, she picked the best hotel in Illium."

"Yes she did," Shepard faced Garrus, "Anything on your mind?"

"Well, most of the crew already left except for the engineers, Chakwas and Joker. I guess they want to face the music with you. I just wish I could go with you."

"So would I, but I don't think the Alliance would let us share a cell.

"I suppose not, although if Alliance incarceration protocols allow for conjugal visits, I might just see if they take turians as citizens."

Shepard laughed, "So what are your plans Garrus?"

"I'm going back to Palaven. My mother...she is sick and...well...lets just say I'll like to be with her. Then there is some other family business I have to take care of, some long overdue conversations. Oh and I'm going to try and see if I can warn them about the Reapers, again. I doubt it would work this time but who knows, maybe the twentieth time is the charm?"

Shepard took his hand. It was another reminder that they were different, different species, different backgrounds and different worlds. Yet they had gone though so much together, shared so much, lost so much. No one else could understood her like he did. No one knew her like he did. No one trusted her like he did. And she knew, no one loved her like he did. She looked up into his eyes and noticed he didn't have his visor on. Garrus never went anywhere without it.

"Where is your visor?" she asked.

"Oh, that one, well it's taken a beating, so I decided to get a new one. Better specs, upgraded tracking software, you know," he said.

"Can't wait to see it."

"I'll wear it before you leave."

"Talking of which, when do you leave?"

"My shuttle doesn't leave until the day after tomorrow. I wasn't about to leave without," he glanced at the balcony's glass door, " saying a proper goodbye. You know, for old times sake."

Shepard pulled him into the bedroom, "Now that sounds like a plan."


	2. One Night with Tali

_Azure_, Nos Astra, Illium, A few days after the destruction of the Alpha Relay…

As much as he loved the _Normandy_, his ship, Shepard longed for a quite moment in the sun, without bullets buzzing overhead or explosions tearing down the scenery. A quite moment to feel the wind brush against his skin as it did back on Mindoir, before the batarians came.

_Batarians._

He hated them for a longets time. They were the slavers that killed his family and destroyed his home. He joined the Alliance to get some payback and found it in another quite place, Elysium. And like Elysium, the people on the aircars that crossed the Illium sky,commuting to and from work, or sitting down to dinner somewhere on those lofty spires that formed Nos Astra skyline, and even those watching the news about Aratoht didn't know what was coming.

_Human, you've changed nothing. Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater. That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction._

_I woke up this morning in a cold sweat. The nightmare was back, the one with the enormous starship crawling through the Citadel and all my friends turning to dust. Even now I can see it in my mind. Why won't this stop?"_

He held his own at Elysium with a pistol and a prayer. He slowed down the Reaper invasion by sacrificing others; Kaidan at Virmire, the Heretic Geth, and three hundred thousand lives at Aratoht.

_Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything._

Sometimes he wondered if he was doing the Reapers job for them. Killing thousands now to spare them the nightmare that still resided in his head, vision of the Prothean extinction. He took another swig of his beer. In a few days he would turn himself to the Alliance. It would be up to them to deal with it. His career was over.

"Shepard?" came a gentle voice from somewhere over his shoulder.

"I'm here Tali," he said.

The quarian joined him at the balcony. She interlaced her hand with hers. Tali tapped his fingers with hers, counting what for her where extra digits, five to her three. He gazed his reflection on her helmet obscured by the glint of the afternoon sun. A pair of bright white eyes gazed back through the face plate.

"I just ran my last check of the _Normandy_'s systems, Shepard, she is good to go," she said.

"Are you?" he asked. As much as he wanted her to go with him back to Earth, he knew he asked too much of her already, too much by far.

"Almost. Funny, when I first went on pilgrimage I was excited, but all I really wanted to get back home, but now, after what my father did, after talking to Legion...I don't know. I'm _vas Normandy_ now, Shepard. As much as I know my people need me, I also know that my captain needs me as well," she said.

"I'll be fine Tali. My decision, my responsibility as a Alliance soldier and as a Specter," he said.

"Bosh'tet! It's the Council's fault. Had they listen to you about Saren and the Reapers or about the Collectors, or simply pulled their collective heads out of their-"

He gripped her hand tighter, "Tali."

"I know, I know, it's just..."

"Nothing goes according to plan, does it?"

"You had a plan?"

Shepard laughed. He could always count on Tali's wry humor. When she met her she was a bundle of fiery naivete, willing to do whatever it took to help him on his mission. Had he not met her on that alley on the Citadel, she probably would have defeated Saren's assassins by herself and taken a ship to where ever the bastard was hiding and blasted him to kingdom come with her shotgun. Now she was a woman, brave, hyper competent and someone to share a quite moment before the next storm.

"Tali, your people already know the risk. I need them to prepare. We are going to need every ship from every species to stop the Reapers," he said.

"I know, but the Admiralty board is obsessed with the Geth. I doubt they will listen to me," she said.

He put the beer down and put his arms around her waist, "Oh I don't know, you certainly opened my eyes."

"Really?"

"Yes, you showed me what was really important, what I was fighting for."

She slipped from his grasp and tiptoed back into the room, "Then maybe I'll have to remind you again, just so you don't forgot while I'm gone," she said with one long arm extended.

He took it and followed her into the bedroom.


	3. One Night with Thane

_Azure_, Nos Astra, Illium, A few days after the destruction of the Alpha Relay….

Shepard curled up in a lounge chair, sweatshirt drawn tightly around her. She ignored the buzz of hundreds of shuttles that flew across Illium crowded skies. She loved cities, the buzz, the energy, life compressed into a million shoe boxes all chattering and clattering for attention. Illlium was no different than Vancouver, although now she could look down at the masses below from the balcony of a luxury hotel. Back then, she looked down to the pavement so as not to trip on her own feet, not attract the attention of the predators that hunted in the shadows of great office towers and government buildings. Back then trust was hard to come by. Love, no lust, was fleeting and safety non existent.

She trusted the Alliance and they turned their back to her the moment she died.

_It all fell apart without you, Commander. Everything you stirred up, the Council just wanted it gone._

And then she made the mistake of trusting the Illusive Man.

_We're at war. No one wants to admit it, but humanity is under attack._

She should have strangled the glowing eyes bastards, but instead did everything he asked. Then she saw the greed in his eyes when the Collector base was within his grasp.

_Strength for Cerberus is strength for every human. __**Cerberus is humanity.**_

Not to mention betray a friend.

_You're in the presence of a legend, Delen._

And to top it all off, she sentenced hundreds of thousands of batarians to death. And for what? To buy an willfully blind galaxy a few more months to live?

"Siha?" said Thane as he sauntered into the balcony. Thane was like a spring, always ready for action, full of latent energy, one moment deep in quite reflection, the next an explosion of power and motion. He was the perfect predator.

_A suicide mission? Yes...a suicide mission would do nicely...I'm dying._

He sat at the edge of the chair. Someone else might look awkward trying to balance their frame in such small space, not Thane, of course.

"Thane, you shouldn't be here," she said. The longer they stayed together the harder it would be to say goodbye. She said too many of those to know this one would not be any different.

"I am where you are, siha," he said

"Yes, and tomorrow I'll be going back to the Alliance."

"And the day after that I will be dead," he countered.

She shot up from the chair, "THANE!"

"Yes siha?"

"Stop it, just stop it, okay?"

"I apologize. I did not want to make this any harder than it should be. I just wanted to say," he blinked several times, "thank you. Thank you for giving me a chance to...redeem myself, a chance to reconnect with my son and to..." his deep voice trailed off.

She stepped closer, hands buried deep in the sweatshirt's pockets, "And to what?"

"To put everything in perspective. I thought I had made peace with my life, with the idea of leaving my body, but now I realized I merely giving up on living. You gave me a reason to live again, if only for a moment."

She wanted to look away, but the knot of fear twisted harder in the pit of her stomach, fear that if she blinked or looked away he would simply disappear.

"I am so sorry Thane, I never meant to hurt you," she said through trembling lips.

"Hurt me, siha? On the contrary, you healed an old wound, one that festered for a long time and now, perhaps, I'll have a chance to heal the wound between my son and I. You gave me that chance, a chance to heal and to move on as we all do, as we all must."

She buried her head in the crook of his neck. Tear flowed freely for the first time in a long time. He embraced her with steady, firm grip of strong, warm arms.

"What now?" she asked.

"Now, siha, now we live."

She leaned on him as they watched their last sunset together.


End file.
